IT goes without saying that no teacher should be attacked in the classroom (or elsewhere for that matter), so the figures on our front page today are shockingly high.

But the figures show the problem with league tables. The obvious thing to do with such information is to compile a table to discover the most violent area, but it quickly becomes apparent that we are not comparing like with like.

Clearly what constitutes an assault in Durham or Darlington is not the same as in Middlesbrough or Newcastle.

There is also a suggestion that some areas may be manipulating the statistics to prevent schools from appearing in a bad light.

A league table, therefore, would be meaningless.

This brings us to Sats – Standard Assessment Tasks – which teachers are threatening to boycott until they are scraped.

In principle, Sats are no bad thing. They have the potential to highlight whether a child has basic knowledge and which teachers are doing good and bad jobs. Parents do have a right to know how well their child’s school is performing; taxpayers how well their money is being spent.

Sats also help prepare children for later life when coping with examination pressure will be vital, and for real life where there is success and failure.

But the real trouble with Sats is that they, too, are manipulated. Terms disappear – are wasted? – as 11-year-olds are taught to pass three narrow tests at the expense of their wider education and possibly also their well-being.

There is little evidence that Sats contribute directly to the principle goal of education: improving a child’s individual achievement. No sooner has an 11-year-old taken their Sats than they fly the primary nest for secondary school where they are reassessed all over again.

Instead, Sats are used to rate a school’s performance. This may be a worthwhile task, but Sats have been manipulated so much that they are as meaningful as saying Middlesbrough’s schools are 15 times safer than Darlington’s.

If they are so meaningless, why is the Government persisting with them?